Maintained by Robin Tecon, microbiologist and postdoctoral researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich. This blog is about bacteria (and other microbes) and the scientists who study them.

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Sunday, January 27, 2013

Should science be apolitical?

Read the other day in the magazine the Atlantic: “The danger of making science political”, by Puneet
Opal, medical doctor and professor of neurology at the Northwestern University
Feinberg School of Medicine. Opal reflects on the relation between science and
politics; he observes that, in the US, science is associated with the Democrat
party, and he asks the question: why is it so?

Opal’s article is echoing another piece published recently
in Nature, “Science must be seen to bridge the political divide”, by Daniel Sarewitz, from the Consortium for
Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University. Sarewitz complains
about a very US-centered situation, that is, the fact that most American
scientists seem to side with the Democrats against the Republicans. He takes as
an example the letter written by many Nobel laureates in support of Obama’s
reelection in 2012. This bias, Sarewitz claims, is a bad thing for science. He
writes:

“To prevent science from continuing its worrying slide
towards politicization, here’s a New Year’s resolution for scientists,
especially in the United States: gain the confidence of people and politicians
across the political spectrum by demonstrating that science is bipartisan.”

This, according to Sarewitz, is the way to go if we want to
secure funding by the politicians. I find it strange that, at the same time,
Sarewitz criticizes science’s politicization (to the left), and offers as a
remedy a very political trick (showcasing bipartisanship to tame the lawmakers).

For Opal, the danger of politicization is greater
than the loss of fundraising. The danger is to undermine the role of science! He stresses
the risk of subjugating science to an ideology, and to illustrate this risk he
brings in the infamous episode of lysenkoism in the USSR. From the 1930s to the
1960s, the agronomist Lysenko, backed by the Soviet government, denied the
reality of Mendelian genetics and promoted a more Marx-compatible science,
michurinism, which in essence declared the inheritance of acquired traits. Lysenko
was put in charge of all agricultural research by the Soviet party, with
catastrophic repercussions on the advance of biology in the USSR… (A great
account of this story can be read in Jean Rostand’s “Science fausse et fausses
sciences”.)

Opal, as I understand him, says that science should be kept
away from political ambiguity. He writes:

“We
in democracies should make every effort to promote the objectivity of
scientists so they can seek and communicate the best approximation of truth in
the natural world, using their training and resources. […] Political choices
can be made after the evidence is presented, but the evidence should stand for
what it is. If the evidence itself is rejected by politicians -- as is
currently going on -- then the ignorance of the political class should indeed
be exposed, and all threats resisted. This should be the case regardless of
where across the political spectrum the ignorance is coming from. This might
seem to be a diatribe against conservatives. But really this criticism is aimed
at all unscientific thinking.”

I endorse this. Science serves to produce knowledge, and
this knowledge can inform us about our political decisions—not the other way
round. Opal also writes:

“In other words, threats to scientific thinking can come
from any quarter. What must be preserved is the pursuit of science away from
irrational dogma. In that sense scientists should be completely nonpartisan.”

I agree with what Opal writes, although I have to say I
have difficulties to see what exactly his response to Sarewitz is (is
bipartisan equivalent to nonpartisan?). I also find the debate muddled by the
indiscriminate use of the words “science” and “scientists” in these articles.
The word “science” itself can mean different things, for instance the pursuit of sciencein order to gain knowledge or science as a social endeavor (the two
somewhat overlap, since we don’t do science in the void, but I think it’s
useful to make a distinction). In their article, Opal and Sarewitz use these
terms (“science”, “scientists”) mostly as synonyms. But depending on how you
define them, the meaning of what they say is changed.

So, should science be apolitical? Yes, absolutely, if we are
talking about science as a discipline (the
pursuit of science). To mention again the Lysenko affair, there is no such
thing as a Marxist science, because an ideology-driven science cannot work. It
simply isn’t science anymore. But from this it does not follow that scientists
have to be apolitical. Scientists are, well, human beings, and everyone has a political opinion. Even not
expressing one’s opinion is a way of agreeing with the status quo. To sum up what I think: The pursuit of science must be
apolitical, but the scientists cannot be and it is not desirable that they be.

Opal concludes, in his article, with something that
corresponds to my feeling:

“As citizens, those of us who care about science should
encourage policies that promote education to increase the number of
scientifically literate people. This includes supporting our currently
embattled public research universities, and federal research agencies that fund
science education. Slowly this will increase the numbers of a scientifically
literate populace.”

I heartily agree, but this is, of course, a highly political
stance. So Opal warns us against the politicization of science, and at the same
time he defends a vision of science as an essential part of a government’s
effort. In my opinion, this escapes contradiction only if one narrowly defines
what is meant by science in both
instances. I
think that scientists’ involvement in public affairs is a great thing. Think of
the Russell-Einstein manifesto! Probably what we need today is more scientific
voices in politics, not less. The US situation seems pretty unique and, as far
as I can tell, results from the decisions and policies of one party (when you
elect representatives who believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old, you know
that something is going awfully wrong.)